To butterfly trout you must first know how to clean trout. After cleaning your trout you can butterfly it to remove the tasty meat from the bones of the fish. This process of filleting will remove all of the bones from your fillets so you can have all the benefits of no bones and enjoy every bit of your clean trout. The main reason for those who like to butterfly trout is to cook the trout with the shape of the fish intact, with or without stuffing.

Optional: At this point you may wish to cut off the head (some people like to leave it intact when cooking the butterfly trout).

To cut off the head of your trout simply lay the trout on its side, grip it firmly at the middle of the fish and cut through the spine and body (perpendicular to the previous cut) just below the gill area leaving you just the body where the good meat is

With a sharp knife cut the inside of the trout along the base of the backbone just below the head where the meat is thick without cutting through the skin. This is important to be careful as you want the skin intact to have the butterfly trout shape when you are done.

Work your blade of your fillet knife through the clean trout from the backbone to the belly on the outside of the rib cage, cutting the meat off of the fish from just below the head all the way to the tail.

Cut both sides of the fish this way and lay the fish on its spine while the fillets lay on the cutting board away from the rib cage.

Cut carefully under the spine without going through the skin of the trout. Pull away the spine and rib bone structure from the butterfly fillets.

You now have a butterfly trout! You can cook your fillets just the way they are or you can follow the steps below to remove the pin bones from your butterfly trout.

Pin Bone removal:

The couple of small pin bones can be eaten after cooked (cooked bones are quite soft and hardly noticeable) or they can be removed before cooking.

First locate the pin bones on the meat towards what was the backbone of the clean trout.

To remove the pin bones simply make a cut on either side of the pin bones into the meat in a v pattern down the length of the bones (about one third to one half of the fish length) and remove them in one piece from the trout fillet.

Now you have your two boneless fillets on your butterfly trout! You can grill or cook them to your hearts delight! Some people love to stuff the butterfly trout with regular stuffing you find in your grocery store before cooking or grilling it. Either way it is bound to be delicious and tender!